Play Isn't Just Play: Why Your OT Keeps 'Just Playing' with Your Child

At a glance, Occupational Therapy sessions may often look like an hour of games, toys, and fun. Great! But… is that it?

Before I give you some insight on how play can be the exact thing needed for your child’s skill development, I believe it’s important for you to understand what goes inside the head of a pediatric Occupational Therapist (OT).

First and foremost, the word “occupation” is often associated with someone’s job or profession. However, within the context of OT, an occupation is simply any meaningful activity that fills a person’s day. Using this definition, OTs may aim to support your child to engage in their everyday occupations (e.g., toileting, feeding, hygiene, dressing, etc.), but we also use occupations (activities) in creative ways to also ensure your child is engaged and are motivated to make meaningful changes.

For children, play is their primary occupation and it is also how they learn to engage with objects in their environment, develop skills, engage with others, and learn more about the world around them. 

Reflecting on my own experience, I can tell you that I was not the strongest student growing up. As I took on various roles teaching, developing after-school programs, and now working as an OT, I realized how much I would have benefited from an OT because of how uniquely this profession can make learning not feel like learning. This is why I lean heavily on play as it removes the pressure that made learning hard for me.

Playing can have the following advantages:

• Natural opportunities for problem-solving and gives your OT a window into how your child thinks

• Supports your child’s sensory needs for learning

• Increases levels of motivation and engagement

• Facilitates therapeutic relationship building

• Supports children in building up their self-confidence in a functional and positive way

• Allows for skills to generalize to everyday life

For example, stacking blocks into a tower might look simple but your OT can be watching to see how your child scans their immediate environment to find the blocks (visual scanning), watching how they decide what goes where (motor planning), and help your child work through when a tower doesn’t turn out as planned (frustration tolerance). While your child is having fun, your OT is continuously observing, adapting the activity, and grading the challenge to provide opportunities to support development.

So no… it’s not just play, it’s the real work. 

Are you curious how play is used in your child’s therapy sessions? Feel free to ask your OT in the next session!